Eval Pipeline & Guardrails
AI Engineer path · lesson 93 of 124Gate a deploy on an offline eval suite, block injection & PII at runtime with guardrails, follow the dev→prod→feedback lifecycle flywheel, and learn what to observe in production.
Key insight
Evals are CI for AI: score a representative test set and block the release if quality drops below baseline. Toggle the regression — two failing cases pull the score under 80% and the gate stops the deploy before users ever see it.
Where guardrails go
Place the two guardrails around the model.
Tap a piece, then tap where it goes — or drag it. Tap the tray to take one back.
User input
LLM
Response
Test your knowledge
What does a regression gate in an eval pipeline do?
The short version
Evals are the pre-flight checklist that grounds the plane if a gauge regresses; guardrails are the seatbelts and airbags that protect during the flight. You want both before carrying passengers.
In more depth
Eval Pipeline & Guardrails
Offline evals run a fixed test set through the system and score it; a regression gate blocks the deploy if the score drops below baseline — CI for prompts/models. Guardrails protect at runtime: input guards catch prompt injection and PII; output guards enforce schema/format and filter toxic/policy-violating content. Online monitoring tracks quality, latency, cost, and lag. Together they let you ship LLM systems responsibly.
Interview Questions
References & Further Reading
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